Adult With Asthma

Asthma, a lung disease, affects over 25 million people living in the United States, including 1 in 11 children. It causes 3 in 5 people living with asthma to limit their physical activity or miss days at school and work. Asthma is also expensive, costing the nation $56 billion each year.

On World Asthma Day (the first Tuesday of May) and throughout May, people with asthma and organizations dedicated to asthma control and education join together to increase awareness about asthma and improve the lives of all people with asthma.

This toolkit features information for people with asthma, schools, public health practitioners, and others grouped in one place for Asthma Awareness Month use. Use the Asthma Awareness Toolkit to raise awareness today!

Background: Exposure to secondhand smoke (SHS) from burning tobacco causes disease and death in nonsmoking children and adults. No risk-free level of SHS exposure exists.

Results: Prevalence of SHS exposure in nonsmokers declined from 52.5% during 1999–2000 to 25.3% during 2011–2012. During this period, declines were observed for all population subgroups, but disparities exist. During 2011–2012, SHS was highest among: children aged 3–11 years (40.6%), non-Hispanic blacks (46.8%), persons living below the poverty level (43.2%), and persons living in rental housing (36.8%). Among children aged 3–11 years, 67.9% of non-Hispanic blacks were exposed to SHS compared with 37.2% of non-Hispanic whites and 29.9% of Mexican Americans.

Conclusion: Overall, SHS exposure in the United States has been reduced by half since 1999–2000. However, 58 million persons were still exposed to SHS during 2011–2012, and exposure remains higher among children, non-Hispanic blacks, those living in poverty, and those who rent their housing.

Implications for Public Health Practice: Eliminating smoking in indoor spaces fully protects nonsmokers from SHS exposure; separating smokers from nonsmokers, cleaning the air and ventilating buildings cannot completely eliminate exposure. Continued efforts to promote implementation of comprehensive statewide laws prohibiting smoking in workplaces and public places, smoke-free policies in multiunit housing, and voluntary smoke-free home and vehicle rules are critical to protect nonsmokers from this preventable health hazard in the places they live, work, and gather.

In recent years, defilement of the air has significantly impacted the health and hygiene of the population at large. In order to address this issue properly, information is needed on the particulates responsible for affecting the quality of air both outdoor as well as indoors. Pollutants vary greatly in their composition, as well as from place to place. Data is required to interpret a correlation between particulates with that of health and hygiene. This information may signify an overall idea about the air that composes an environment and its quality.

Therefore it is essential to have data available to properly manage the local air quality. It is in this context that EDLab has decided to provide Pollen grains and Mold count in the ambient air on a daily basis, available for the general public and professionals interested in this endeavor.

Pure Air Control Services through its AIHA accredited laboratory will be publish the Allergen & Asthma Alert www.pureaircontrols.com on a daily basis Monday through Friday.  A team of aerobiologists, under the supervision of Dr. Rajiv Sahay, FIAS, CIAQP (Laboratory Director of EDLab at Pure Air Control Services), will collect and analyze samples with cutting age technology from an air sampling station located at Clearwater, Florida (Tampa Bay Area 27.97° N and 82.76°W)

Each day the Pollengrains and Mold counts will be compared to the normal indoor environmental quality (IEQ) guideline. The groupings of the trap Pollen grains and Mold/Fungi are rated on a scale ranging from high, medium or low. High counts of these outdoor air quality pollutants correlate to an elevated rating, while low counts suggest reduced exposure to such allergens.

These same counts can be measured indoors. Subsequently, viewers, doctors, patients and allergy sufferers can determine the level of air quality and the corresponding effects upon their individual allergy symptoms.

“The EDLab staff is pleased to make this valuable and important aero-allergen information available to the public in the Tampa Bay area. It is important to raise our awareness to outdoor and indoor air quality issues, which affect our health and well-being, and the AAA is contributing to that awareness,” states Dr. Sahay.